A rat heart undergoing decellularisation (top three images), and during recellularisation (bottom)

(Image: courtesy of the University of Minnesota)

“IT’S amazing, absolutely beautiful,” says Doris Taylor, describing the latest addition to an array of tiny thumping hearts that sit in her lab, hooked up to an artificial blood supply.

The rat hearts beat just as if there were inside a live animal, but even more remarkable is how each one has been made&colon; by coating the stripped-down “scaffolding” of one rat’s heart with tissue grown ...

To continue reading this article, log in or subscribe to New Scientist